EMDR
Bill Harvey: You’ve been a trauma specialist for a while, and now you’re branching out into the new field of EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing] therapy. Is that true? Darrell Sanchez: EMDR is a PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] treatment. Francine Shapiro is the psychologist who stumbled on this process of eye movement and […]
An Interview with Julie Diamond, Ph.D.
Til Luchau: So what is Process Work? Julie Diamond: Process Work is a modality that works with the whole person, in the language of conventional psychotherapy, the unconscious as well as the conscious parts. But “whole person” also means all the different arenas in which people operate and live, like relationships, body symptoms, group life […]
The Ethics of Touch
What constitutes ethics in a helping relationship? What is ethical touch? These are questions that have accompanied me for thirty years, first as a recipient of Rolfing®, later as a Rolfer and still later as a teacher of Rolfing. In this time I have seen, experienced, heard of and done many things that I now […]
A Small Piece of Oral History
MS: You were in a Rolfing® class as model for an osteopath? JB: Yes, I was under the care of an osteopath, Betty Herbert, who asked me if I’d like to be her model in a class she was participating in. MS: What led you to see an osteopath in the first place? JB: I’d […]
Improvisation, Jazz and Rolfing:
One day over lunch, my movement teacher, Vivian Jaye, and I were discussing how I might improve my connection with clients. Her idea was that, as a musician, I “play” them like instruments. That I initially struggled with this interesting idea hardly surprised me, when I recalled my unsuccessful forays into jazz improvisation. Clearly, there […]
Further Thoughts on Femur Rotation and the Hip Flexors Psoas and Iliacus
The effect of the hip flexors iliacus and psoas on rotation of the femur is significant in understanding structural patterns and developing effective bodywork strategies. Robert Schleip’s lecture notes (Schleip, 1988) suggests that hip flexors medially rotate the femur. Schleip focuses on the psoas primarily, but his argument is equally true for iliacus as well […]
Integrins and the Senses
INTEGRINS I have pondered, as many of us have, what happens in our clients’ bodies during Rolfing. I have not found the gel-sol model of connective tissue lengthening to be satisfying. Not that adding energy to connective tissue can’t change its properties, including its length, or even that something like this might be happening in […]
You Are/Are Not – Who You Think You Are!
IF PERCEPTION ABOUT PERCEPTION IS CHANGING, HOW ARE WE TO LOOK AT THE BODY? Since the turn of the century, artists have been deconstructing the visual certainty of the world which has long been a hallmark of Western consciousness. In Figure 1, painter Rend Magritte distinguishes the presumed space of the pipe from the actual […]
Perception and the Cognitive Theory of Life:
When it comes to the practice of Rolfing®, it is not much of an exaggeration to say perception is everything. One of the most important and difficult skills that every Rolfer must learn is the ability to “see.” The problem of teaching students to perceive the whole person in accordance with our five taxonomies of […]
New Conceptions of Breathing Anatomy and Biomechanics
To understand the role of posture in the breath, we are going to start by looking at the biomechanics of the breath itself. Again, we will be primarily concerned with normal, quiet breathing and focusing therefore on the muscles involved in inhalation. All the muscles in Table One are said to be involved in inspiration […]